7/20/2011 @ 5:00PM

The Nanny State Bans Our Lightbulbs

Government doesn’t want us to light up. Not just tobacco products, subject of increasingly tight restraints on personal freedom, but the simple light bulb, which has served humanity well for over 130 years. The incandescent light bulb is already being crowded out of the European market under the guise of appliance-efficiency standards, and the U.S. is next up for the ban, beginning in 2012.

Cigarettes and light bulbs are not the only products governments seize to force-educate the public, but maybe the most visible items on the list. For all the pretensions of unique policy concerns (health in one case, energy efficiency in the other) both sets of official dogmatists have one thing in common: They are convinced that individuals can’t make their own sensible, informed choices, so the power of government must be brought to bear to remove those choices altogether.

One wonders whether U.S. politicians really believe their constituents make rational choices at the voting booth, but are incapable of doing so at the shopping mall?

The decades-old anti-smoking campaign succeeded in regulating what people do and where they do it. New York bans open-air smoking in public parks, and options for indoor smoking are virtually gone. Private options are under threat too.

Information and imagery are fair weapons to dramatize the social stigma of smoking, the main cause of smoking’s decline. Regulating the right to smoke out of practical existence, however, no matter how foolish the habit, remains an assault on personal freedom, high-minded motives notwithstanding. Freedom to be stupid is essential to individual liberty and a free society.

Incandescent light bulbs should be a different matter, but unfortunately aren’t. Arguing against legislation (by Rep. Joe Barton) to reverse the ban on the Edison bulb, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said, “We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money.” Apparently it’s better for them to waste it on windmills, solar panels and engine-destroying, starvation-causing ethanol blends: all energy choices compelled or incentivized by Chu’s government. You never know about these Nobel-prize winners once they get out of their field of specialty (in Chu’s case that would be trapping atoms with lasers). The common-sense gene sometimes seems lacking.

Another ingenious argument against the Edison incandescent is that their low cost keeps “advanced,” more efficient products off market. General Electric, Cree, Siemens and other makers of CFL bulbs (the squiggly, mercury-filled bulbs with bad light) and LED lights (better light, even more costly) are making market hay out of the mandate to phase out Edisons. Assuming they haven’t bought the politicians to pass these business-enhancing laws, it’s only because they didn’t need to.

If these new bulbs are so great, more efficient and at least as good at lighting, why do they need a government mandate? The answer is that they aren’t that great (yet), and nowhere near price competitive.

Even if eco-analysts were right that many of these new bulbs will pay for themselves in energy efficiency (which still doesn’t guarantee cost-efficiency), government has no business forcing such individual choices. Nor would it need to.

This “denial of choice” syndrome is the 21st-century zeitgeist sickness that echoes the anti-temperance movement–only with science substituted for morality. Instead of “you shall not drink” we have “you shall not smoke.” “You shall not use inefficient products.” “You shall not eat fast food.” “You shall not drink raw milk.”

In each case the individual is made subordinate to the state in making entirely personal choices. Alleged effects on society as a whole could be claimed for nearly every private behavior and do not alone legitimize such infringements. The objection is not to raising those social concerns, but to the arrogant assumption by a social and political elite that they have the right to make and impose such decisions.

At least there is a hint of a political backlash. The House of Representatives turned down Rep. Barton’s bill to repeal the bulb-ban, which faced a supermajority hurdle; but then voted to ban any enforcement of that ban for the next year. Some still say the bulb-ban is safe, with the Senate divided and a president who hired Chu.

Not so fast — the bulb-ban was signed into law by President Bush, and average Americans don’t even know their handy light bulbs are about to be banned. If that ban takes effect, will they blame Barack Obama and Steven Chu or the president who signed the ban into law? There is a nice mix of politics and principle to be made here, if only the right leaders seize the initiative.

George A. Pieler is an attorney and policy analyst in Falls Church, Va. Jens F. Laurson is editor-at-large of the International Affairs Forum.